National Football League

A properly maintained playing surface can help reduce head injury risk. Whether natural or synthetic turf, field management practices directly affect field hardness and, in turn, the risk of head injury. As a result, monitoring field hardness is key.

The decision by San Francisco 49er Chris Borland to retire from the NFL after just one season out of concern for the long-term effect of head trauma has predictably generated a media firestorm. But lost amid the hoopla is what it means for sports parents.

Here are two lessons I think parents with kids playing -- or considering playing -- football or other contact and collision sports can take away from the Borland retirement, and one lesson they shouldn't take away:

The decision by San Francisco 49er Chris Borland to retire from the NFL after just one season out of concern for the long-term effect of head trauma has predictably generated a media firestorm. But lost amid the hoopla are the lessons for sports parents.

On Sunday morning, I appeared as a guest on a ESPN's weekly program "Outside The Lines" on a segment titled "NFL: Marketing To Moms."

ESPN deserves kudos for its "Outside The Lines" segment on the NFL's marketing to moms, but, while it did a great job of identifying the fact that football moms are looking for a source of objective information about youth football safety, it could have done more to highlight the fact that such sources already exist.

Head Games: The Movie paints the sports concussion picture largely in black and white terms, eschewing a more nuanced approach in favor of the sensational. It is a movie that is intended to evoke in viewers an emotional, not rational response but, in the end, it is the movie that is playing games with our heads.

Today is MomsTEAM's twelfth anniversary! It was on this day in 2000 that our website went live.

On our anniversary in years past I have blogged about what happened in the previous 12 months in youth sports, but this year the focus will be on youth football.

Why the narrower focus? Well, for two big reasons.

This has been the summer of football for MomsTEAM for two big reasons: first, we have been working on an exciting concussion project focusing on a football program in Oklahoma, and second, we have just returned from a visit to the Mecca of football: the New York City headquarters of the National Football League.

Most of the buzz about the commercials that aired during this
Sunday's Super Bowl was about the Chrysler ad featuring Clint Eastwood,
but, for me, the one commercial I won't forget was the 60-second spot by
the N.F.L. at the end of the third quarter touting the league's progress
since its founding to make the game safer.

The N.F.L.'s Super Bowl commercial touting the league's progress
since its founding to make the game safer obscured the
reality that league has not done enough to protect its current players from the dangers of
head injuries and left too many of its former players
struggling in retirement with symptoms of early dementia, depression,
and thoughts of suicide.